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Hi,
Techtalk is the general tech list of Linuxchix, men are allowed but only
if they don't shout and let the girls talk first.
http://www.linuxchix.org/
An interesting thread on scripting languages has just developed, and I
attach posts so far to this email (hope the za-pm listserv does not
mangle them). You'll see my comment.
If you want to make a comment, then either join, or copy me and I'll
forward it in with full credit to you.
bestest
Anne
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Do you know of any good ruby and/or perl tutorials? I'm fluent in C,
and know a bit of Java, C++... and some scripting. I've played with Ruby
some, but am looking for a good tutorial on learning more.
I'm itching to learn something new...
Thanks!
Bethany
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On 4/13/2010 11:48 AM, Bethany Seeger wrote:
Do you know of any good ruby and/or perl tutorials? I'm fluent in C,
and know a bit of Java, C++... and some scripting. I've played with Ruby
some, but am looking for a good tutorial on learning more.
If you already know C and Java, and are familiar with Unix, then the
best way I can think of to learn Perl would be to just get _Programming
Perl_ (aka "the Camel Book"). _Learning Perl_ (aka "the Llama Book") is
also not bad, but it's a gentler learning curve, more suited for
non-programmers. I suspect it might be too easy for you. Both books are
by O'Reilly.
For Ruby, some people like Why's Poignant Guide, but I found it too
whimsical. It seemed more concerned with being goofy and "artistic", to
the point that it got in the way of my actually learning the technical
details of the language. Instead, I prefer the Pragmatic Programmers'
book _Programming Ruby_ (aka "the Pickaxe Book"), which is more
programmer-ish.
--
Kai MacTane
LAMP, AJAX, and Ruby on Rails developer
http://kai.mactane.org
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Hi Bethany,
On Tue, 13 Apr 2010, Bethany Seeger wrote:
> Do you know of any good ruby and/or perl tutorials? I'm fluent in C,
> and know a bit of Java, C++... and some scripting. I've played with Ruby
> some, but am looking for a good tutorial on learning more.
I learned Ruby from Why the Lucky Stiff's amazing and somewhat disturbing
book, which I highly recommend and you can read for free online here:
http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/book/chapter-1.html
I learned Perl from the O'Really book "Learning Perl", which I also highly
recommend, if you really insist on learning Perl. I think Python might
help you preserve your sanity, though.
Cheers, Chris.
--
Aptivate | http://www.aptivate.org | Phone: +44 1223 760887
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with company number 04980791.
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Thanks for the recommendations. (just read a page of the Why's guide and
it's very amusing...)
What I've had a hard time figuring out is what scripting language is it
valuable to learn? Esp if you mostly program in a compiled language but
sometimes what a script to manipulate data, or just perform some minor
function. What looks good on a resume?
Perl vs. Python vs. Ruby...
I've used Ruby for some minor utilities I've needed, but only because I
wanted to learn the language some. I realize Ruby (on rails) is being
used in website development, but I haven't touched that yet.
I realize Perl is older and way more complicated. Maybe over kill for
most things I want to do. Or at least not a very good choice.
-Bethany
Chris Wilson wrote:
Hi Bethany,
On Tue, 13 Apr 2010, Bethany Seeger wrote:
Do you know of any good ruby and/or perl tutorials? I'm fluent in C,
and know a bit of Java, C++... and some scripting. I've played with Ruby
some, but am looking for a good tutorial on learning more.
I learned Ruby from Why the Lucky Stiff's amazing and somewhat disturbing
book, which I highly recommend and you can read for free online here:
http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/book/chapter-1.html
I learned Perl from the O'Really book "Learning Perl", which I also highly
recommend, if you really insist on learning Perl. I think Python might
help you preserve your sanity, though.
Cheers, Chris.
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Hello, Bethany,
My ha'porth - from someone with minimal perl skills.
On Wed, 14 Apr 2010 08:49:16 -0400
Bethany Seeger <see...@prosensing.com> wrote:
> perform some minor function. What looks good on a resume?
Well, maybe what you might come across more often in the sort of
environment you intend to work in would be a more appropriate question.
If you were working in a in an established 'nix environment you would
surely meet miles of lines of perl scripts there. It is also ubiquitous
on the web whatever other languages grab the limelight at present. Even
if not the 'flavour of the moment' perl has serious power, and the CPAN
repository of perl modules is matched by but nothing. Nobody said that
it was the easiest, but then it surely isn't the most difficult. It is
very versatile.
No one ever got overlooked for having perl on their resume, and since
you won't be able to soak up enough of a new language in a few weeks to
fool an interviewer who might be skilled in that particular language,
then plan for a longer term relationship with your chosen partner.
All of the o'reilly perl books are good, and I note the following from
a 2006 article which is still relevant (and which you might read).
http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=526866
--------------------------
Recent Bookscan stats show Perl at roughly three times the number of
sales as Python, ten times as Ruby, and half as many as PHP.
O'Reilly Media is very much driven by numbers and they felt the Perl
book market was strong enough that they published 4 new Perl titles
last summer alone. That is a large number of books for a relatively
small tech publisher to devote to a single language.
---------------------------
Somebody has to be reading all those books, and it isn't the local book
club ladies either!
bestest
Anne
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Hi,
On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 2:49 PM, Bethany Seeger <see...@prosensing.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the recommendations. (just read a page of the Why's guide and
> it's very amusing...)
>
> What I've had a hard time figuring out is what scripting language is it
> valuable to learn? Esp if you mostly program in a compiled language but
> sometimes what a script to manipulate data, or just perform some minor
> function. What looks good on a resume?
>
> Perl vs. Python vs. Ruby...
I think what matters a lot is also what people in your field are
using. I do some scientific stuff and you can usually use python
(though perl is still very popular as well). Ruby isn't very popular,
I think to do with the ruby VM having a reputation for being somewhat
slow (not an issue when coding websites, but somewhat if you wanna
crunch some numbers). Python has nice C bindings for when you need
them for that kind of stuff, which can be handy. Though I've never
seen a problem that I couldn't do in java or the like, since usually
the limiting factor for me is memory, not cpu.
> I realize Perl is older and way more complicated. Maybe over kill for most
> things I want to do. Or at least not a very good choice.
IMHO you've been a bit sheltered from the more advanced features in
Ruby and a bit overexposed to the more gnarly features in perl. I find
perl slightly harder to read, but on all both are pretty much as
simple or as complicated as you want them to be. I had more trouble
picking up ruby than perl actually, but only because I'm too used to
oop and imperative languages. I think people with a lisp background
would prefer ruby.
Just my 2c,
Wim
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On Wed, Apr 14 at 8:49, Bethany Seeger penned:
>
> What I've had a hard time figuring out is what scripting language is
> it valuable to learn? Esp if you mostly program in a compiled
> language but sometimes what a script to manipulate data, or just
> perform some minor function. What looks good on a resume?
>
> Perl vs. Python vs. Ruby...
>From my perspective, the language that is valuable to learn and put on
your resume is the language you'd be happy working with day in and day
out. There's no point padding a resume with skills you don't want to
use.
> I've used Ruby for some minor utilities I've needed, but only
> because I wanted to learn the language some. I realize Ruby (on
> rails) is being used in website development, but I haven't touched
> that yet.
>
> I realize Perl is older and way more complicated. Maybe over kill
> for most things I want to do. Or at least not a very good choice.
It sounds like you're not that impressed with Perl, so maybe
invent a bigger project for Ruby or check out Python.
Also from my experience ... I've used a bit of Perl and a bit of Python
here and there, but the bits I've used have never stuck in my head,
because they were such a tiny fraction of my main job. If you want to
be hired to develop mostly in a compiled language, I would venture to
say that it doesn't matter which of those scripting languages you've
listed. So again, go for the one you like best =) But if you list it
on your resume, be prepared to talk about it and use it at the
interview.
I personally would not list one of these scripting languages on my
resume, because while I can fumble around in them, I wouldn't be able to
write a short program using their idioms and data structures. I'd
rather list very few languages, but instead fill up the resume with
descriptions of some projects I've worked on and how they helped the
company succeed. (YMMV on this depending on how much experience you
have.) Your resume drives the interview conversation to some extent; if
you primarily list languages, expect to be quizzed on them. If your
resume mentiones some interesting projects, you'll probably spend at
least some of the interview talking about those projects - and you're
probably more excited and knowledgeable about those projects than about
any particular language.
Just my completely unsolicited opinion ...
--
monique
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> What looks good on a resume?
> Perl vs. Python vs. Ruby...
I think that what looks best on a resume is a good range of skills, rather than
any one specific language or combination of languages. If it looks like
learning yet another language isn't going to be an issue for you, IMHO a good
potential employer shouldn't worry if you don't have the one that's part of
their in-house culture. OTOH resumes can be filtered by non-technical HR
people who don't necessarily think this way.
That being said, see my reply to the next section:
> I realize Perl is older and way more complicated. Maybe over kill for
> most things I want to do. Or at least not a very good choice.
As a Lisp person, I'm inclined to think there's nothing wrong with older
languages as such! Reading a resume with Perl near the top of the list tells
me "here's a heavy-duty working geek who can learn things not designed
specially to be easy to learn". Of course, it's not necessary to use all the
complicated bits of Perl all the time, and there is an "Enlightened Perl"
movement (http://www.enlightenedperl.org/about.html)
> a script to manipulate data, or just perform some minor function.
If the "minor function" is a part of your personal workflow, rather than some
scripted part of a system that you're not sitting in front of as it runs, I'll
add a less common suggestion: Emacs-Lisp. It's by far the most interactive way
to munge data, and it's about as good as Perl at regular expressions (at least,
near enough for any requirements I've seen).
But, that's drifting off the topic of Ruby and Perl tutorials.
For an experienced programmer, I'd suggest the quickest approach is to dive
directly into the Perl documentation, e.g. at
http://search.cpan.org/dist/perl/pod/perlsyn.pod, taking it along with a sample
program -- perhaps find a program to modify. I think most Perl users I've
known have learnt it by osmosis rather than through a book! It's a bit like
the von Neumann quote about maths: "in mathematics you don't understand things.
You just get used to them." And that's the way I've found it to be with Perl.
__John
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Bethany Seeger <see...@prosensing.com> writes:
> Thanks for the recommendations. (just read a page of the Why's guide and
> it's very amusing...)
I liked it a great deal. Why writes well, and the technical side is also
fairly sound.
> What I've had a hard time figuring out is what scripting language is it
> valuable to learn? Esp if you mostly program in a compiled language but
> sometimes what a script to manipulate data, or just perform some minor
> function. What looks good on a resume?
For what it is worth, when it comes to hiring any of those scripting languages
alongside a compiled language background looks good to me. It shows that you
have been willing to look beyond the one style.
> Perl vs. Python vs. Ruby...
Any of them. Ruby and the new hotness, vs Perl and CPAN, vs Python and style,
all have their strengths, weaknesses, and ... well, save for a few jobs that
are specific to it, none really seem much better than the others to me.
> I've used Ruby for some minor utilities I've needed, but only because I
> wanted to learn the language some. I realize Ruby (on rails) is being used
> in website development, but I haven't touched that yet.
>
> I realize Perl is older and way more complicated. Maybe over kill for most
> things I want to do. Or at least not a very good choice.
I would tend to disagree, but may be biased: I mostly work in Perl. ;)
Perl isn't terribly much more complicated than the other languages (or that
much older, really), though it has some quirks that are more visible than the
quirks in the other languages.[1]
Anyway, of those three I wouldn't recommend any over the others much: they are
all essentially the same language, and once you know one the other two are
pretty easy to pick up, because they are all more similar than they are
different.
Regards,
Daniel
Footnotes:
[1] I think this is partly because the quirks of the other languages,
especially Ruby, come from their being a bit less mature in some of the
non-language areas like software packaging and distribution.
--
✣ Daniel Pittman ✉ dan...@rimspace.net ☎ +61 401 155 707
♽ made with 100 percent post-consumer electrons
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